DOJ may bust up BCS, but replacement could be less appealing

If you were starting from scratch, almost any alternative system would make more sense. But because the system in place guarantees the greatest revenues, exposure and recruiting advantages to the most established conferences (plus Notre Dame), reformers can expect stern/smug resistance.

“The (university) presidents and the (conference) commissioners understand that there is always going to be passion about postseason football,” Hancock said. “Those presidents live in a world where every day somebody gets left out of something. They get beat up, they get sued, every week. I don’t sense any angst about it.”

Not yet, anyway. A pointed letter, after all, is not a lawsuit, and that’s as far as the Department of Justice has proceeded. Ultimately, the DOJ may identify higher priorities than making college football more inclusive.

“It’s just a question of how they choose to devote their limited resources,” antitrust attorney William Markham said. “Unfortunately, in the last 20 years or so, egregious misconduct has gotten a free ride. On my shortlist of egregious conduct, I don’t see (college football) as being that high.

“I think universities should have other priorities than enlisting the support of the Department of Justice to pry open public sporting events so that their universities can have more acclaim.”